ALLEN WAYNE PORTER

In 1991, Porter was attending the trial of his nephew, Jimmy Hatton, who had been charged with breaking into the house of an alleged drug dealer and, along with two other men, repeatedly raping two women in the house. During the proceedings, one of the victims pointed at Porter and accused him of being one of the attackers. In 2004, Porter succeeded in obtaining DNA testing that failed to link him to rape-scene evidence. Even so, state District Judge Joan Campbell ruled against him at the time, after a lab technician testified that absence of DNA evidence linking Porter to the crime didn’t necessarily mean he was innocent. Porter’s luck began to change in 2009 when he presented his case in a letter to then-Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos and asked her to review his case. Porter’s attorneys questioned Jimmy Hatton again, and he now said his uncle had nothing to do with the crime. Porter’s conviction was vacated. “I just want everybody to know, whatever you go through, just don’t ever give up,” Porter said. “Sometimes I had doubts, but I trusted God through it all.”